


Icarus (1) Gentleman Jack

by BlackbirdWrites



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: #Anne Lister, #GentlemanJack, #LadiesAreHerOpium, #Lister'sTwenties, #hidingInPlainSight, #lover of women, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 07:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackbirdWrites/pseuds/BlackbirdWrites
Summary: "Icarus" is narrated by Anne Lister, who has much to say about her untimely return to Shibden.  In "Making an Impression" Anne reflects back to her mid-twenties and the damage she took finding her way as a lover of women.  Her self-reflection is interrupted when the Priestley's turn up with their cousin, Miss Walker, for tea, and Miss Lister and Miss Walker first meet.





	Icarus (1) Gentleman Jack

**”Icarus”**

1832, Halifax

Lack of courage on my part, not the reason I’ve paused my usual marching gate down the grassy hillside toward Shibden. Indeed, all who’ve met me presume my bravery inherent, like my other oddi…qualities, my boldness puts me square in the frame to pursue the most beautiful women to be my wife.

In Paris, in Rome, and most recently in Hastings —ladies kiss my lips with coy friendship and unmistakably so much more.

Naught a fool and yet, I would be happier married by now, and landing anywhere but back in Halifax, if not for the constant parade of male suitors ceaselessly calling upon the ladies of my affection and marrying them. 

I have crashed back to earth not as dead as Icarus but undeniably scorched by the corona of the aristocracy. I’m not one of them, and they know it. My ownership of the four-hundred-year-old pile of a sprawling manse, Shibden Hall, I never tire of reminding those who might forget the history made here in 1415 when King Henry V frequently visited, before and after the Battle of Agincourt.

Not to my astonishment, four-hundred-year-old English kings are no match for the nineteenth century where gold and silver are its valued currency. My cleverness, my ancient lineage, my flawless politeness pattering from French to Latin and onto ancient Greek —should anyone try to test me.

I easily outwit them all, and it’s where my training is critical. The lords and ladies, the marquis and marquise, and any baron who’s invited me to his shooting party, all get the last word with me and every confidence that they are right, lest I be thought of as vulgar by my hosts and hostesses. What I think of them I write in my diary. To date, I have eighteen bound volumes of my near-constant musings and travels.

Staring ahead, I clear my mind of recent unpleasant events, realizing I’ve not stood still for this long since I thought I’d broken my right ulna. Bastard horse. So yes, It’s decided. I will march through the stone gate of Shibden, a returning battle-tested Lister as if all my wars won and no battle was too bruising upon me.

I can always be counted upon to do it. I’ve never lived an ordinary life and won’t be starting one this afternoon.

**”Making an Impression"**

It would take me no time at all to write a brilliant how-to-guide on making first impressions. Included in its opening chapters would be my best advice on future follow through, or their opposites and most disastrous extremes — how to escape with your head when an enraged husband is chasing you through his castle.

I've heard them, the stories whispered about me in my roguish youth. To their truthfulness I will add a caution: Would it not be impossible for me to be in both Switzerland and London on the same evening? Thusly, the questionable behaviour of Lady Harrington was first blathered about by her intoxicated (a fact) younger brother, who had snickered that he had seen (possibly) a younger woman —who had looked a lot like me —and Lady Harrington slipping grapes between their lips whilst kissing in front of the fire. 

Those were difficult years, and getting caught was not without injury. Whose business is it of yours?' Never stopped anyone from gossiping or worse, jumping me in alleys. I learned to fight with an iron and nickel-plated walking stick that especially cracked hardest on the exceptionally thick-headed ones.

By 1817, I calculated my odds of ever seeing my twenty-seventh year and had decided I urgently needed to disappear for a while. I chose the south of France. 

It was during that particular hideaway while waiting on the storms up north to blow over that I began to see how my life might change for the better if I hopped off the unsteady track I was on and changed it for a lucky one. The answer was to master the art of social navigation. The spoken and unspoken secret languages of it I grew an abiding appreciation for because it hid me brilliantly when I needed it most. 

I excelled at 'the game' and hiding in plain sight, or sometimes not. On those occasions, my 'made for innuendo' eyebrows would signal how lovely she and I could be as lovers. But Vere. I completely misjudged my chances with her, and at the very end I fear I'd made a fool of myself in Hastings.

How agonizing misjudging love is.

Sitting in my drawing room, I run a quick muscle check ensuring that my polite smile is still in place and not revealing the regretful pangs of my lovesickness.

So why now exactly have the Priestleys turned up at Shibden? With me being only days home, and much that requires my attention elsewhere I cannot be counted upon to be here yet, Miss Walker is brought to call upon me. 

I wonder, while the servants are setting the trays for tea and cakes, is Miss Walker's family having difficulty with her? Are the Priestleys here hoping that my legendary bonhomie will draw Miss Walker out of her shell? 

Interrupting my train of thought along the lines of 'what is to be done to help Miss Walker' the large hall clock and the even more deeply-toned one in the back of the library both chime precisely at four. I flip open my pocket watch and note that everything is just as I have set it, on time. 

Satisfied, I stretch my arm across the back of the loveseat and lean in closer to my timid visitor. "Miss Walker? What amuses you all day? Do tell me more about yourself."

"Oh," she blushes slightly, "I wouldn't know where to begin. My days spent would probably look foolish next to yours."

Her answer puzzles me and not what I had expected, from a well-off lady of nearly thirty. "How could you possibly think that?" I give her my best-encouraging smile. "Surely, there is much of interest going-on at Crow Nest."

Her eyes search mine. "Is there?" 

The loneliness of a lady is opium for me, and I hear it in the thickening of my voice, and I don't stop myself from asking Miss Walker, "Perhaps, I should come and have a look? What do you think?" 

"I'd be …" is all Miss Walker gets away before I interrupt her.

"Delighted. Good. Then it's settled. Tomorrow, perhaps?” I pour her more tea.


End file.
